It’s popular thinking of late to let go of the past, to pay it no heed, and to focus on the future. Of course, if we dwell endlessly on the past and particularly our past mistakes, we will go on forming those things in the present and in the future, so letting go of the past in that sense is very wise indeed.

However, knowing where you have been can help you see where you are and where you are headed. It can provide for you a good benchmark for comparing things in the longer term. A great example of this is in terms of goal-setting. On a particular day, you might feel directionless and bored, feeling as though you have no goals and nothing to work towards, that you don’t know what you want and that you aren’t capable of getting what you want anyway.

“How can this be?” I thought. Only recently I had been so strongly motivated, and had spent much time working out what I wanted and setting down a few goals to that end. At this point, I looked through my old journal and notes that I’d taken back as far as the beginning of the month. And you know what I saw? I saw that a lot of the goals I had written down here and there I have actually already achieved or made good progress towards, in so little time! Here I am achieving goals and making great progress, and yet so forgetful of the past am I that it feels like I’m not getting anywhere at all!

For one thing, it is less than 2 weeks since I discovered and recorded that part of my Big Dream as it were is to get qualified in massage so that I can practice on the public (and of course learn the skill thoroughly), for their healing, for money for me, to have a skill there that I could take anywhere and use to provide a living for myself wherever I go. I’ve a passion for learning about the body and freeing it up to work as efficiently and joyfully as possible, so it’s very appropriate for me, and makes good use of my interests and talents. Today, I received a letter saying that I have been pre-approved for enrollment into the course that I wanted to take, which starts in September (some kind of interview is usually necessary, but not in my case apparently, I’ve had experience in other massage courses run by the Adult Education, so perhaps that’s why). So, I’ll register and pay for it on Monday and that’ll be that. Not bad for only a couple of weeks since setting the goal (and I’m hugely excited about it! Getting qualified for something is a major career move, a whole year commitment (well, school year of 9 months in this case), who’d have thought that of me?).

Of course, one goal does not a life make, and like many goals you can’t be working on them 24/7, so what happens to the space in between? There’s always other goals, and I see that I’ve made good progress in those too… freeing up my body more and more, growing stronger and more flexible, with greater range of movement, keeping up with my Tai Chi practice (and finding I’m enjoying it more and more), socializing more - I’ve been out and about a bit, and had friends to stay with me and more scheduled, I’m keeping up with the site here, and Q&V, my comic strip site (and again, it’s been under a month since I committed to doing that twice weekly regularly again). So there has been much change, much improvement, and much success and much progress with many of the goals I have set. And realizing this, of course I feel great.

What is needed then, to keep from getting these times of directionlessness is this: Really keep yourself clear on your dreams. Write them down, all your dreams and goals, and (where possible) timeframes, and keep them handy. Keep them visible. Keep looking at them every day, so you can see where you’re at. Naturally goals and desires change, so let your dreamlist reflect that, but with something so tangible there, it’ll be all the more easy to keep motivated, and to keep on congratulating yourself on how well you are doing. Because in the end, if you can’t feel good about your achievements, and you can’t pat yourself on the back now and then, why even bother with all this effort of achievement?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 29th, 2006 at 4:02 pm and is filed under abarefootman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.